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new stucco technique???
Here are the pictures of the 'accident'. See what you think?
Not too bad for an accident turned fortuitous~
Then, I sprayed the outside in a flat creamy white. Covered up the 'holes' in the walls.
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Tiny Houses, No, Really
So, I live in a tiny house. Like, literally. It's 280 square feet. It's a vintage travel trailer from the 50s. I do have my old trailer, which I use mainly for storage, where I'm currently purging, with the goal of eventually getting everything down so that eventually, life can be lived in under 700 square feet.
But it brings up interesting issues when you're working with dollhouses. What takes up not much room in the world of tiny, can take up a ton of space in the world of tiny houses. And I'm building an apartment ;)
The majority of the build took place in my tiny house, but the house itself, will live in the other space, at least until I have a new home.
So yesterday, after the last of the beams had been fixed in place, I took the shops up to my big place to live. The other apartments will be built out in what I lovingly call my tiny house "the minty turd".
What would I do if I didn't have the big place? Probably make the apartment building weatherproof ;) but I'd prove that when it comes to dollhouses, space constraints shouldn't constrain your dreams.
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Here Are The BEFORE Pictures
Here is the front:
The tan shingles & the exterior of the roof:
The interior:
The inside foyer with broken and various pieces:
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New blog!!!!!!!!!!
So really i dont really know what i want to do yet with the house.Picture.bmp.
Ive tried stuff,and hated it. Right now im reworking
everything execpt the exterior colors which are the ones in the obove picture.
I wont really be blogging for a while because i cant really work on the house.
I will be printing out all my wall paper,and i hope to finish it this coming year. Cant make any promises. TTFN
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The Columbian rehab
I finished the Columbian a few days ago. This is a picture of the front of the house... egg carton stone front. I really like how the egg cartons turned out, and it was a fun project. !
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The Hobbit House Blog
The Hobbit House Blog:
This will be the start of my blog for the Hobbit House build. This house is a last minute request for a Christmas present, and I’ve had to put both my Bronte build and the rehab on my Fairfield on the back burner to get this done in time for the holidays. I’m starting out with these supplies, I’m sure there will be more as I go along but here’s what I had to buy to get started:
- 6 - pieces of 3MM Birch Plywood ⅛x12x24
- 1 - quart of Dap Dry Dex Spackling
- 1 - quart of Minwax English Chestnut 233 wood stain
- 1 - 18 pc. Carbon hole saw set
- 2- 1 inch round windows and 2 ½ inch round windows
- 1 – Piece of ⅛x12x24 inch Plexiglas
At this point everything else that I need for the moment is in my stash. I started out by taking two of the boards and cutting them in half to make my two outside walls and two inside partition walls. I measured and cut a third piece for my front wall cutting out a 4½ inch round front door and the four round windows (Two 3½ inch large windows and two 1 inch round windows.). I then cut two 1 inch round holes in the outside wall pieces for my side windows and two 4½ inch openings in my partition walls for the doorways.
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- 6 - pieces of 3MM Birch Plywood ⅛x12x24
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Some pictures of the house as it is, now...
I've been having "issues" with loading pictures...trying to figure out how to adjust the resolution on my camera to make them the proper size to post here. So we'll see if this works:
The house has had as many cracks as I can reach -- filled in with wood putty. Some of the rooms have been painted. I'll be painting the rest in the next day or so. The hardest area to paint is the area along the staircase. This should have been painted (or papered) before the house was built! I didn't attempt to take all that apart.. it was pretty well-built, only one major seam along the staircase that needed putty. But it also is a very cramped space, so it's going to be a challenge to paint.
Then wallpaper. I intend to wallpaper the upstairs and the smaller room downstairs, which will be a kitchen. The Great Room will be painted white. I think I'm going to make a stone fireplace there too, and cover up the original one, and perhaps do the same for the one upstairs....I may have to send my husband out for more pebbles! (We live in sand country...sand, pebbles, rocks, boulders, are all around us!
)
Let's see if I can post these latest pictures.. Ah, that worked!
you'll also see the windows I made, using pieces of old "lumber" from previous houses, scraps from the Greenleaf houses so they're the right dimensions, right thickness. I'll paint them the same color brown as the outside of the house, and the beams in the ceilings on the first floor.
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So many ideas....
I was looking through Pinterest the other night looking for ideas and this one picture jumped out at me - my stomach flipped and I knew exactly who my new Chantilly is for!!!
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stump fairy house, still sanding!
Been doing more sanding when weather permits, kind of cold out there sometimes, and way too much dust for in the house. Doing more of the fine sanding now, getting the wood very smooth. I figured out where I want doors and windows, at least part of them but haven't had the courage to cut yet, cutting is so final. I think I am going to work on the bed, I can do lathe work in the house on the tiny lathe and it is not very messy, at least no dust and I can do it on newspaper to cleanup fast. The bed spread is done now, I finished it last night. The final act was sewing on the ruffle, I started matching the two pieces but quickly realized that wasn't going to work because it buckled the ruffle up making it look awful. I had to pull the ruffle a little to get it right, the bad part of that was undoing about 4" of hard won ruffle because stretching the top part made it way too long. It is not the easiest part to undo because of all the rows that only knit part of the row and turn, plus the yarn overs and knit two together make it easier to lose a stitch while taking it apart on such tiny work. I think my next knitting project will be a blanket or maybe more then one, I do have a blanket chest to but in the bedroom. I am going to work on designing the bed first then start in. Since my iPad battery is dead I have no way of putting pictures on there so I will if I get the battery fixed.
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Wire and Glue Tute
Here is a list of the items needed to do this tutorial!
34 Gauge Gold Beading Wire
Sobo Glue
Knitting needle or Dowel for the size of petal you want
Paint brush for glue (larger)
Paint brush small
Fine Point tweezers for shaping your petals
***Important*** Always twist wire in the same direction! Very Very important
1. Place your dowel in your left hand, spool of wire to the right.
2. Lay the wire in the front of the dowel with your stem length in front of dowel.
3. Lay wire up and over the dowel to the back of dowel this is the continuous length of wire from the spool.
4. Pinch the two pieces of wire together tightly.
5. Give the dowel one twist. I go clockwise.
6. Go back over the dowel, 2nd loop, pinch tight and twist.
7. Repeat one more time. After your last twist, twist the stem. Cut off.
This will be your bottom petal. Grab ahold of the last loop and twist out and down, even with the stem wire. Do the 2nd and third loops the same. Remember to twist the same way you twisted the wire orginally. Shape the petals like an iris. Do not let any of the petals touch other petals. Bend these wires down.
Set aside.
Repeat the above steps for the up part of the iris. Bend these petals up.
Take your paintbrush and glue and lay the glue onto each petal. This is a little tough but you will get the hang of it. It is easier to go from the sides. Fill each petal. Set aside and let dry til the glue is clear.
Paint. Let dry. Add the yellow to the top of the bottom petals from the inside out. And just do 3 dots on the upper petals.
Let dry.
Set the upper petals onto the lower petals and twist the two stems together. Paint the stems green (the same color as your leaves), and let dry.
Leaves. Cut a piece of cardboard into 3 step like patterns. The first step would be just below the height of the flower, the next step slightly shorter and then shorter again.
Place wire on the top step leaving a 3/4" stem, wrap, twist two times, do one wrap around the second step, twist two times then do one wrap around third step, twist two times then twist the stem.
Now, you need a second set of leaves but this time just do two smallest leaves. Shape these with pointed tips using your tweezers. Lay in the glue, let dry. Paint. Let dry.
When the leaves are dry. Place the 3 leaf set behind your flower stem and twist stems together. Place the 2nd set of leaves in front of your flower stem and twist all together.
You should have an awesome iris at this point! Have fun......
Any questions? Email me.....
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Walls
I have started on the walls, the wallpaper just flakes off,except where the glue is. So I had to sand it off. I spackled the walls, let them sit overnight and gave them a good sanding the next day. I am starting to prime the walls now and they are sucking up the primer. !!! Even after a coat of spackle. I'm still working on the foundation, still have a few pieces to prime. Then to decide how I am finishing that. I am thinking of cement blocks, gotta go measure them on my real house before I start though. The porch will probably be painted gray. That is as far as I have planned so far. I have no ideas for the exterior color or finish.
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Welcome to my blog
It has been a while since I've worked on anything to do with dollshouses. This is mainly due to not really having the room to work on my 12th scale projects, so I am going to turn my attention to working on half scale and quarter scale projects instead. I live in the UK, so I have never built nor will I likely have the oppertunity to work on any Greenleaf houses. Most of the houses I have bought have been the small Dollshouse Emporium ones which they manufactured for their creative competion pieces, but I never had the chance to build them to enter them. I prefer small houses to large ones because they allow me to be more creative as there are lots of different styles of miniatures that you can use.
I do have an old Lundby house which I bought off e-bay for a project involving Sylvanian Families which I am updating. (Hopefully, I'll be able to do more of that next summer when I've organised our flat a bit.)
One of my favourite UK companies to buy dollshouses from is Petite Properties as they speacilise in quarter scale and other small scales. They are more ideal for my living condictions at the moment and I have built three of their houses and I have an half-scale tudor cottage which I hope to resume work on over the winter months.
I do other crafts, mainly cross stitching and sewing projects which I will feature in this blog from time to time.
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First Leap of Progress
This weekend saw the first big push for progress after the windows took almost a straight up week to do because I was not satisfied until I completely customized every weekend.
The windows were done by taking transparency sheets, and cutting them to size using the windows included in the kit as a template. Then, based on some Pinterest inspo, and good ol' fashioned trail-n-error, I painted the outline of the windows with black paint mixed in clear glue. After it dried - I used either white or green tinted clear glue to fill in the glass segments that I wanted colored. I had to go one color at a time, letting the layers dry completely between coats to prevent bleeding (hence why it took almost an entire week). After I was satisfied with the colors, I painting one last outline on the top with black to have both sides identical.
Then, because I am me, I didn't like how 'flat' and perfect the clear part of the windows looked so I did a layer of acrylic poly something or other that was in my craft room. This created an awesome old window look that I am very pleased with.
Have decided to try putting wallpaper on both before and after assembly to see how it goes both ways. Because I want this house to look like someone in living in it as it is falling apart around them I wanted the segments of wallpaper to be really apparent. I cut scrapbook paper in 8 x 2 strips, smeared glue on the walls and then layed them down - using books to keep the paper flat while it dried. Then, I carefully pulled some of the wallpaper off and used watered down acrylic in various shades of brown, green, gray, and black to created an old and distressed effect.
Turns out I could spend HOURS creating gross wallpaper LOL - so fun and it is awesome to see the character start to come out.
Currently putting the varnish on the window and door casings so I can start gluing some stuff together!!
Image is a dry fitting of the living room front - you can see the spider web stained glass on the front door and the double hung window - really happy how the pop of green adds interest
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Moving doors AND windows
Starting to think all of my blogs are about fixing things and changing my mind.
My original floorplan had the main door enter into the kitchen. I - and by default my eventual dolls - like to have a place to drop my grocery bags as soon as I walk in the door, and too many open floorplans and apartment plans these days do not include back doors, like in the good 'ol suburban neighbourhood days. Having spent some years as an interior designer, I had a number of clients interested in Feng Shui and the the order of placement. After taking some photos of my house' facade, I realized we see right into the kitchen as we open the door, and Feng Shui frowns upon this.
So, I got to thinking ...
Got out my box cutter ...
... and switched the main door for the main front window. And it did feel better. And, the front door is now closer to where a car would park ... to unload groceries or whatever. The main door now opens into the living area, a thumbs up per Feng Shui.
Big question of the day is, will my eventual doll family really care if the kitchen sink alighns with Jupiter? Probably. I have seen some real 'placement order' doozies over the years.
I really need to get my doll family together. Does anyone write bios about their dolls? Habits, likes, single or married, kids or pets .... mine for sure will be fans of the series 'American Pickers'.
Pic. 1: the photo that started it. I can see the kitchen farm sink through the front door. Main window is to the right, with its privacy screen.
Pic. 2: Door cut out.
Pic. 3: Window cut out, moved to door opening.
Pic. 4: Door moved into window opening. Spackling in the cuts and chop marks.
Pic. 5: From the inside. My hard hat area.
Pic. 6: fitting the privacy screen.
Pic 7: All back together.
I cannot imagine doing any of these changes if I were working in wood. Course, then again, maybe I'd be more careful in my planning from the get-go. Or maybe I just enjoy demolition!
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